SANTA ANA, Michael R. Sumners: So, Mitt Romney as a teen boy teased a classmate at an all-boy’s school back in the mid 1960s because the guy was suspected of being gay. Hello? As a teen? And back in the 60s? Wasn’t that a time when being gay or, rather, committing homosexual acts, was a felony? And the vast majority of the country looked down on gay people?

I submit that if the President Barack Obama’s position has “evolved” on the issue, than so has Romney’s. It just hasn’t evolved to the point where he thinks that homosexuality is normal.

Oh, the homosexuals got the tolerance alright, and are getting more day by day. But that is just it. They are more “tolerated” in this society. What they want now is not tolerance. They want everyone to believe and proclaim that it is normal.

Democrats want the GOP to concede

LAGUNA WOODS, Andy Allaire: Letter-writer Bob Constantine opines that he would like to see the “End of the Filibuster Rule” [May 14] because the 60 vote majority gets nothing done in Congress. Constantine and Democrats like him always want the Republicans and/or conservatives to concede to the Democrat philosophy or law they are trying to pass. Have you ever heard of the Democrat conceding to the Republican side of the issue? Never! It’s always you bend my way or we are going to fight, fight, fight. The 60-vote majority was established to keep some sort of sanity in Congress and prevent the majority party from running amok which was a classic example of what happened the first two years of the Obama administration in which one party ruled the system. This is “my way or highway” politics at its worst.

Dick Lugar was sent to Washington as a Republican. He was supposed to vote as a Republican, however if you look at his voting record, he voted with the Democrats on nearly every issue, every time. Now I know if you’re a Democrat, you like to see Republicans walk across the aisle and vote for your pet projects, but what about the Republicans back home who sent you there to be a Republican voice? The voters (an overwhelming of them Tea-Party voters) decided enough was enough and sent him packing. Hopefully sending a message that the two-party system is still alive and doing well. Sometimes Democrats rule the roost and other times Republicans will. The minority party needs to have protections when the majority rules all three hen houses and that’s the way it should be. Without the protection, you come very close to a dictatorship and that would not serve anyone except the dictator.

Government’s primary function: protect America

CHINO HILLS, James M. Dorn: The House passed legislation to restore the funding to the Department of Defense [“House votes to protect Pentagon from cuts,” News, May 11]. It paid for this by cutting social programs such as food stamps, child day care and Meals on Wheels. This caused the Democrats in the House to vote against it. The Senate’s Democratic leaders intend to kill the bill as leverage against the Republicans for tax increases and their version of spending cuts. The political parties are up to their usual gamesmanship for the aggrandizement of their respective parties. Republicans and Democrats have forgotten why there were elected to office.

The primary function of the government in the United States is to protect the American people and American territory from the predations of any foreign power or foreign threat. In simple English, job number one is to defend us. Anything that hinders or adversely affects its ability to do that is secondary. Thus, when the government is faced with limited funds for providing for the common defense or providing for every other of its activities, necessary defense expenditures must be funded fully and everything else receives less funding. The nation must survive if it is to perform its secondary and tertiary functions. If it fails to survive, all else becomes moot.

I urge House Republicans to pass a clean bill that only restores the funding to the Defense Department. I urge the Democrats to vote for this clean bill. It is in the interest of this nation’s continued existence to do so. Save your partisan nonsense for the fights over tax increases and funding the other cabinet departments.

America does not need 535 Nero’s in Congress fiddling while the world burns.

Brown could care less about California

IRVINE, Laurella A. Cross: Even in the face of a $16 billion state budget deficit for 2012 — up from a $9 billion deficit projected only four months ago – Gov. Jerry Brown is determined to see the construction of the high-speed rail, the cost of which is incalculable. Brown forges on with this ill-conceived project while simultaneously lamenting impending cuts to public services, especially to education, a phony ploy used each time Sacramento needs more money to spend.

Further showing his contempt for the taxpayers of this state, Brown insults us by begging us to approve his numerous proposed tax increases, increases that will further drive people from the state who actually pay taxes. Either Brown is disconnected from reality, or he lives in his own reality – that is, his own political world that is totally divorced from the daily lives and struggles of the man or woman working in the private sector.

We see now that our polls are in urgent need to begin construction of the high-speed rail to the point that it appears all environmental rules may be suspended in order to quickly break ground in the San Joaquin Valley. Then, they must figure, the die is cast.

In other words, follow the money.

The unions will pressure those in power to get any and all jobs relating to the construction of the train. In turn, unions will make political contributions to Democrats who will continue to increase union wages, pensions and health benefits. Such political access by well connected donors who benefit from the high-speed rail slush fund can only be to the detriment of the taxpayer.

As the project progresses, lawsuits will ensue that enrich the trial lawyers who also support Democrats in Sacramento with huge contributions. Commissions and boards will be formed — all political appointees living large at taxpayer expense to forge “cooperation” with homeowners pressed to give up their properties. Neighborhoods will become blighted as land and homes are condemned through eminent domain. Insiders will eventually pick up that property for a song and will come back asking the taxpayers to pick up the tab for “renewal and redevelopment.”

Taxpayer funds that should be spent to fix our roads, freeways and infrastructure will be diverted to pay for this boondoggle. California will deteriorate further.

So we see Brown is not “Governor Moonbeam,” he knows exactly what he is doing, and he is not the self-described “visionary” he claims to be. Brown is just another cynical, opportunistic, up-to-his-neck-in-hock-to-the-unions Democrat politician. And when it all comes down around our ears, these corrupt politicians will blame us. We are done for, unless we wise up.

Nullification: the constitutional remedy

LA HABRA, Bobby Florentz: Walter Williams’ insights are always enlightening and educational [“Most racists were Democrats,” May 9]. He is absolutely correct about nullification being the constitutional remedy for our run-away federal leviathan. There is much more to be learned about this remedy in the book: “Nullification” by Thomas Woods. I would also remind readers of Martin Luther King Jr. when he observed, “Everything Hitler did was legal, everything our founding fathers did was illegal” and let our consciences be our guides.

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